Thursday, May 15, 2014

In terms of population,
Christianity is the dominant religion in Fiji, with 65 percent of the
population classified as Christians in the last census. Approximately 95
percent of the indigenous population (the majority ethnic group), are
Christians. To understand Christianity as the dominant religious situation of
Fiji, a perspective from the classical theories of Marx, Durkheim and Webber is
helpful.[1]

Religious Theory of Karl Marx

Marx’s theory of religion was approached from
the point of materialism, in which matter is the source of existence and
determines everything. Marx’s materialism was critical of Hegel’s idealism in
that he argued that the infrastructure (matter) determined the superstructure
(ideas). He carried this view forward to the class structure which he described
as a class conflict of the oppression and exploitation by the ruling
bourgeoisie, who had the means of production; of the proletariat, who could
only contribute labour force. Marx’s theory of religion was shaped by this
inequality of economics.

Marx
viewed the function of religion negatively as used by the oppressive
bourgeoisie to provide the proletariat with a form of psychological
compensation for their social, economic and political deprivation by providing
comfort, encouragement and hope. Religion, according to Marx was an “opiate of
the people” which was used to manipulate them and maintain the status quo.
Marx’s alternative to this “oppressive social ideology” was the abolition of
religion as part of a social revolution.

Religious Theory of Emile Durkheim

Durkheim, unlike Marx, had a more positive
view of religion. He approached religion from a macro sociological perspective,
looking at society as a whole. In particular Durkheim focused on the role of
religion in providing solidarity, integration and a sense of community within
society. For Durkheim, the attributes of religion – the sacred, ritual and
belief played an important role in the collective consciousness of a community.
He examined the role of religion as a mechanism of social integration and
control.

Durkheim
understood this integrative function in terms of the universal and general
function of religion. From this perspective he saw religion as eternal and had
an expectation that a new God would be accepted in the future, in order for
religion to maintain its functionality. While Durkheim was initially criticized
for basing his theories on a primitive tribal society and thus not applicable
to a modern society, the work of Robert Bellah, particularly in his development
of the concept of “civil” or “civic religion” was an important reevaluation of
Durkheim’s social theory.

Religious Theory of Max Webber

Like Durkheim, Webber also differed from
Marx. Webber did agree with Marx that materialism can impact ideology and
religion. However, Webber looked to held that there was reciprocity between
matter and ideology. Thus, according to Webber, religion provided meaning to
existential questions and was an independent variable of social change – not
determining social action but significant in shaping perceptions and
interpretations of material interests.
He sought to make connection between religion and social life and
economic behavior, especially among different religious groups.

For Weber,
religion is best understood as it responds to the human need
for theodicy and soteriology. Human beings are troubled, he
says, with the question of theodicy – the question of how the extraordinary
power of a divine god may be reconciled with the imperfection of the
world that he has created and rules over. People need to know, for example, why
there is undeserved good fortune and suffering in the world. Religion offers
people soteriological answers, or answers that provide opportunities
for salvation – relief from suffering, and reassuring meaning. The
pursuit of salvation, like the pursuit of wealth, becomes a part of
human motivation.

Webber’s Protestant Ethic thesis argued
that the spirit of modern capitalism – economic rationalism, worldly asceticism
and vocation/calling – were protestant ethics emerging primarily from Calvinism,
but also Pietism, Lutheranism and Methodism. For Webber, this ethic based on ascetic
Protestantism that was compatible with modern rational capitalist business and
practices, meant that capitalism could be seen as carrying out God’s purpose in
life. For Webber this meant that religious affiliations could also be
associated with success in business and with ownership of capital resources.
For economic development in Europe, this was a positive thing. Webber also made
comparisons with China and India in which religion had negative functions for
social change or economic development.

Application to the Fijian Context

The
above theories of religion all share a perspective that originates within a
dominant religious situation. Thus one is able to draw both positives and
negative understanding from a dominant religion, in the case of Fiji,
Christianity. Protestant Christianity, in particular Methodism (54% of Christians are Methodist) is the
dominant religion and is understood to be one of the “legs” of the
“three-legged stool” of traditional Fijian society. The
three-legged stool refers to the balance of the church, government and indigenous
leadership, land and culture. The church is the first leg of the stool; the state
is the second leg; while the third leg refers to the traditional chiefly
leadership, land and indigenous culture. The three-legged stool has been
entwined over the years as dividing lines have been blurred. Some believe that
this structure is prevalent in the Fijian Methodist Church today
as we see the hierarchical way it sets up its structure within its leadership
right down to the congregation. While this image is an example of the dominance
of Christianity, in particular Methodism in Fijian traditional society, it has
carried over into modern Fijian society.

From Marx’s point of view,
Christianity has been used as a way of entrenching the status quo among
traditional Fijian society. Chiefs are understood to rule over their indigenous
subjects from a theology that supports divine right to rule. Their focus on
“noqu kalou, noqu vanua” which means “my God, my land,’ is both conservative
and ethnocentric, and has legitimized a
structure in which Fijian commoners, in spite of economic and political
developments, must still defer to the decision of their chiefs. Thus although
the indigenous Fijians have most of the available land in Fiji (83 percent of
land is communally owned by indigenous Fijians) decision-making lies in the
hands of the chiefs, supported, for the most, by the church. The church focuses
on the afterlife to compensate for the deprivation of the indigenous population.

While Durkheim’s contribution to the
concept of civil religion is important, his focus on social integration faces
difficulties when the context is pluralistic society where the Christianity is
used as a social control. There is an “us and them” mentality as the majority
of indigenous Fijians are Christians and the majority of Indo-Fijians are
Hindu. Religion here is integrative at a community level but divisive on the
wider social level. An understanding of the function of religion as social
control in this context may call into question the underlying motives of
evangelism, especially when a dominant culture is attached to a dominant
religion. However Durkheim’s expectation of a new God in the future may lead to
something else, such as national spirit – especially through sports. The sport
of rugby is often described as a religion in Fiji because of its popularity
among every group of society. Perhaps this has a larger role to play in social
integration than religion.

Webber’s
social theory of religion also sheds light on how Christianity in Fiji can be
understood as an independent variable. Christianity, particularly of the
conservative /fundamentalist coupled with ethnocentric nationalism, has led to a
militant resistance to challenges to social control. Christians, with both the
implicit and explicit support of the Methodist Church have been the instigators
and perpetrators of three military and one civilian coup d’états over the last
25 years, Fiji being a “Christian state” between the years 1990-97,
discriminatory practices, emotional and physical abuse of non-Christians and
non-indigenous Fijians. When a change in Methodist leadership tried to shift
the church’s function from a negative to a positive role in society, Fiji
became perhaps the only Methodist conference in the world to have a violent
removal of leadership. In these instances, rather than a “protestant ethic”, a
conservative theology motivated the dominant religion to exert social control
in order to maintain its power. More of the Fiji Christian context will be
discussed in line with the next question on the psychological and social
functions of religion.

One
major criticism of the classical theories of religion of Marx, Durkheim and
Webber was they all only focused on a society with one major ethnic group and
one dominant religion. This, while providing important theories on the nature
and function of religion in society in general does not take into account
modern/post modern societies – not in terms of the need and demise/abolition of
religion – but more so in terms of the rise of globalization and the movement
of people, in that societies are becoming pluralistic. Durkheim’s theory as
revitalized by Bellah, may however, show how these theories can be adapted or
reevaluated to speak to new contexts.

[1]References used in this paper are notes, handouts and
presentation material from “Sociology of Religion” class.